Adventure Comics #73 (1942)
by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby
I wonder how many readers were disappointed by the fact that Manhunter does not, in fact, grow into a giant that terrorizes the city.
Our protagonist is Rick Nelson, yet another idle rich man.
Modern readers who know anything about the name “Manhunter” might be surprised by that civilian name; more on that after the review.
There’s a supervillain terrorizing the city: The Buzzard.
Who honestly is a breath of fresh air as far as Golden Age origins go.
Because it’s rare for an origin to already feature a supervillain, and even rarer for the villain to be just a criminal and not a racketeer or a saboteur or a mad scientist.
He introduces himself knocking out the radio announcert talking about him.
We’ll soon learn that this is an ordinary human in a costume, but you can’t convince me he’s not actually a goblin.
His theme is also, uhm, a little problematic.
“Don’t give anything to beggers, kids, because they’ll get greedy and become deformed supervillain goblins”
I’m with Rick on this one: it’s not like The Buzzard has superpowers, surely he can’t be THAT big of a threat right?
Inspector Moustache is the one to introduce to Rick the idea to use his skills as an animal hunter to hunt criminals.
A man-hunter, if you will.
I might have been too hasty saying The Buzzard doesn’t have superpower, because he can fly!
Sure the narration box implies it’s because of his cape, but how does his cape allow him to jump like this??? It’s not like he’s gliding from above!!!
He’s quite clever, managing to rule the police into a trap and even managing to murder Inspector Moustache.
And he has an AMAZING Kirby design!
This really shocks Rick. The opening narration DID claim that Inspector Moustache was a close friend.
This is the final push to convince him to become Manhunter, with frankly a rather generic costume.
In case you had any doubts that this is a Simon&Kirby story, the first thing Manhunter does to find The Buzzard is to ask a bunch of kids.
How many times are they trying to create another Newsboy Legion??? This has the SAME cover date of Star Spangled Comics #7 !!!
Something tells me THESE kids are way smarter than the Newsboy Legion, though.
We might have been hyping The Buzzard a little too much, though, because Manhunter finds him and traps him with ridiculous ease.
Sooooo… the story’s over, right?
Nope! The Buzzard appeals to Manhunter’s sportsmanship, challenging to a fair fight.
Yeah because big game hunters are famously fair in their fights with African animals.
Okay now you might be thinking: Manhunter has like double the weight of The Buzzard in muscles, surely he’ll just knock him with one punch right?
Well he probably would IF HE WASN’T AN IDIOT.
As a ruthless criminal who killed several cops, The Buzzard just ties up Manhunter without actually harming him. I mean that’s just common sense.
He has more urgent business to attend to, like threatening an old rich woman.
If you thought I was reading too much into the hidden message of this comic… the villain is LITERALLY a homeless man who became a supervillain because a rich woman gave him food!!!
Manhunter, if you’re so great WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THIS EARLIER???
Historical significance: 0/10
Despite the surprising legacy of the name Manhunter, this one has very little relevance.
Silver Age-ness: 1/10
How does The Buzzard “fly”???
Does it stand the test of time? -10/10
It’s been a while since I’ve had to dust off negative scores! Considering other Simon&Kirby comics I’m reasonably sure it’s unintentional, but… I do find it really hard not to read the message hidden behind The Buzzard as “don’t help the poor because they’re just greedy vultures”.
If it wasn’t for that, the story would likely warrant nothing more than a 3/10 on the strength of the artwork alone. There’s nothing else there.
How close is this to the modern character? Which one?
“Manhunter” must be the most popular word to be used in DC Comics after “Bat”, because there are A LOT of “Manhunters”.
This one isn’t even the first… kind of.
Because there was another serial titled “Manhunter”, running from Adventure Comics #58 up to #72 (the one before the issue I reviewed).
But that wasn’t a superhero: he was a private detective. The name Manhunter was used only on the title, but the guy WAS named Paul Kirk… a name that will stick.
As we have seen, the Simon&Kirby one was named Rick Nelson, but they suddenly change his name in his second story… to Paul Kirk. I guess they REALLY liked the name?
He also adds a blue mask to his costume.
The name Manhunter was already popular, because that’s also used by a Quality Comics hero of the same era, debuting in Police Comics #8.
DC’s Manhunter doesn’t last long: Simon&Kirby stay on the title for less than a year, and his last story is Adventure Comics #92 in 1944.
So when Martian Manhunter debuted in 1955 there was no potential for confusion.
We have to wait until 1973 for a new Manhunter story: on the pages of Detective Comics #437, of all places, courtesy of Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson.
He has a crossover with Batman in #443, where he takes down The Council that kept him alive past WWII.
It’s a great story, which ends with Manhunter sacrificing himself by NUKING THE COUNCIL.
And things got really, REALLY complicated.
In 1976, Jack Kirby creates a completely new Manhunter on the pages of “1st Issue Special #5”.
Which is one of the weirdest ideas ever for the name of a series, because there are THIRTEEN issues of something that has “FIRST ISSUE” in the title.
In addition to a new Manhunter named Mark Shaw, this one introduces both the “Manhunters Cult” and a new look that is both reminiscent of the original and should be familiar to Green Lantern readers.
In 1976 there was a clone of the Paul Kirk Manhunter running around, turning into a supervillain.
Because things weren’t complicated enough already, Steve Engleart introduces something new in 1977 on the pages of Justice League Of America #140… a race of alien robots calling themselves Manhunters, created by the Guardians Of The Universe.
Who look like the 1976 Kirby Manhunter.
And turn evil because the Guardians Of The Universe are just. The. Worst.
The Quality Comics version was adapted on the pages of All-Star Squadron in 1984.
Because Roy Thomas.
A new Manhunter (Chase Lawler) showed up in 1994 during Zero Hour, created by Steven Grant.
This is the first Manhunter I ever read about, but I couldn’t make head or fails of WTF was going on with his story.
Can you tell that Spawn was VERY popular in 1994?
Kurt Busiek gave a shot at yet another Manhunter in 2002, once again a clone of the original.
And because things can always be MORE complicated with Manhunter, 2004 gave us a new character with Kate Spencer.
Never read a single story featuring her so I can’t say if she’s an interesting character, but I like her design and she did carry 38 issues of a regular series.
She might be unrelated, but she runs into the rest of the Manhunter legacy in her book.
The 1984 Quality Comics version, the 1994 Chase Lawler version, the 2002 Paul Kirk clone die in the series.
The Mark Shawn Manhunter (the Kirby one) dies in 2022 after becoming the supervillain Leviathan.
But back to the Kate Spencer version: because I must stress once more that Manhunters always get more complicated… she may be unrelated to them, but she is the granddaughter of Phantom Lady.
And since Phantom Lady was retconned into being the cousin of Starman, that ALSO ties that complicated family into the Manhunters.
Her son Ramsey also develops super-strength (his grandfather is Iron Munro, see the Phantom Lady review for that) within the series.
According to the last issue, he will eventually become the new Manhunter once he’s old enough.
If I’m not mistaken, Kate is the only Manhunter still around (excluding the alien robots).
But as things can only get more complicated with the Manhunters, I’m expecting a new one to show up any time soon.
What else was in Adventure Comics #73?
Manhunter might have the cover, but the issue begins with a Starman comic.
Which DOES feature Hunchback Jor-El as its main villain…
…who has one of the most laughable disguises ever.
A Steve Conrad adventure, which has an AMAZING first page…
…and some questionable mythology.
There’s also Shining Knight, who debuted a few months earlier. I’ll cover him with the rest of the Seven Soldiers Of Victory soon.
There’s Hourman, who by this time has his own sidekick Minute Man Martin.
Minute Man doesn’t last as long as Hourman, because only the latter has a special pill.
The joke writes itself, doesn’t it?
There’s also Sandman, another Simon&Kirby story.
Unfortunately by this time he’s wearing his boring superhero costume (as does his sidekick Sandy), instead of the awesome original gas mask. I would’ve loved to see Kirby draw the original look!
Also, wouldn’t this moment be infinitely more badass if he wore the original mask?
